To The Edges of Time
by Col.Foley
Summary: The Doctor is traveling again through time and space, but he has a feeling that his life is coming to an end. An intuition. He goes on one last journey to set things right, with the end of the Universe itself.
1. Chapter 1

River Song was at the moment in the back of the TARDIS, as always surprised at the sheer expanse of the small wooden box, even after traveling with the Doctor for a mere four months

River Song was at the moment in the back of the TARDIS, as always surprised at the sheer expanse of the small wooden box, even after traveling with the Doctor for a mere four months. On his continuing adventures through Time and Space, of which she was a passenger, a spectator. Trying to participate, but usually being over her head.

From a scientific, and her arcehologist brain, this could be one of the best experiences of her life. Being taken to the Great Pyramids of Egypt on one of her first trips. To actually see them being built, now that was a special experience.

She was currently in one of the old wardrobe areas. She was never one much for style, or clothes, but even his wide variety intrigued her. And on a few of them she even stopped to gawk at the old antiques, the some times gawdy, and sometimes gorgeous clothes. She did not notice that most of them were for women. His wardrobe being so much limited to those suits and jackets.

She surpressed a smile as she went back out onto the control deck. And saw The Doctor. Tense as a bowstring as usual. Something was bothering him again.

The question of course was: what?

She could tell that something was bothering him, even knowing him for only four months, as she percieved Time and Space. She could see it in his eyes, and his posture when he thought that she was not looking. He was preoccuppied, as if he was thinking about the future.

Which she thought was odd for a time traveler.

He was continuing to fiddle with the controles, as she watched. He kept on talking to her about the end of the universe, about putting things right. Talking with euphoria, and worry at the same time. As this subject seemed to be of increasing relevance to him.

He knew that she was there, just did not want to turn to talk to her as of the moment in time. He was considering the future, as she knew. Lazilly flying the TARDIS, as he was deciding where he wanted to go next, which could have been any where in the known universe, or the unknown universe. He was considering going back to Barcelona, but something did not feel right about it.

He sighed, nothing felt right to him.

He twisted another control globe, as the TARDIS went in almost the complete other direction from where it was, going in the other way through time. To the past this time.

He did not know why, but he always felt like he was getting slowly more astute with himself, and the ripples of time, the more he traveled. And now he was feeling a constant unease that could only come from the future. Like a man approaching the end of his life was the only way he could describe it.

Another sign of this was his ever increasing euphoria about the past. Everything he was thinking about again. The adventures of this incarnation, and all his others. The good times, and mostly the bad. And the thoughts he had of his regrets, things that he could have done, things that he should have done, things that was forced out of his hands that he really wanted to fix.

None of them he could fix now of course.

But yet, more and more his thoughts went to the one thing that he might be able to fix. His one big let down. Those poor souls being trapped at the end of everything, with no way of finding any peace. That was his fault. He only made it so his TARDIS could go to just two places in time.

And now he wanted to fix it, and make that his one last grand gesture. If his thoughts were right, despite being in his tenth incarnation.

He had some more left to do though. He turned around finally facing River, with a grin on his face. "Hey, I did not see you there." He said to her.

"Well, you seemed to be busy." She smiled sheepishly.

"Oh don't be ridiculous, I always have enough time for you." He said cheerilly. He hoped that she was still new enough to know when he was putting on a face.

She wasn't.

"So where are we off to Doctor?"

"Oh, I don't know. I am still trying to make up my mind already." She was about to say something. "Not Earth though," he rubbed his hand over the back of his head. "blimey, I have been spending a lot of time near there."

"Alright then. Where?"

"Oh, I have no idea." The Doctor looked around desperatly. Then a wide eyed smile occurred through his features, as he realized. His hand shot up with his index finger pointing sky ward. "Oh that's it! We can go there, no monsters, no bad guys! No nothing, completely cut off from most of the known universe, and no cared about, nobody really important goes there…just tourists."

"Sounds fun." She smiled at the Doctor as he went to manuever the controls.

He smiled at her in that giant grin of his, and hit the controls, sending the TARDIS careening through time and space, to a destination far, far away.

They soon dematirialized, over looking a valley. They got out, and The Doctor had to catch his companion as they both looked out over the entire mountanous grounds. The wind blowing that hard.

"Welcome to…….Nonesa"

"Nonesa?"

"That's its name." He said smiling to her and looking around. "Blimey, we must be on the Northern mountains. There is the main city in that direction." He pointed North towards a distance that was far away in what would most likely be North, on Earth.

They both started to walk down the other way, down a gently sloping path that led to the bottom of the valley.

She could just make out animals in the distance that were watching them carefully. As if they were waiting to see what the new comers would come. They passed no one on the way down. But this seemed to make the Doctor all the happier. For he did not react to this mysterious situation. Glad to be away from it all. Just feeling the wind beat across his face.

He looked left, down into the valley, now that they were at the absolute bottom of the path. And began to explain all the history of the are, and the fauna. River was fascinated by it as he was with any of his stories. And she was so thankful that this place had maintained its distance from war, Daleks, Cybermen, Vashta Nerada, or even space ghosts and Werewolves. She admired that so much beauty could still exist in the universe. Reminded her of pictures of certain areas of Earth.

They returned to the TARDIS, the Doctor grinning the whole way. He said that there was something that he wanted to show her this time. He dissapeared in it, leaving her for the longest time to look over the mountains, and at the beautiful magnificance.

The Doctor was looking for something that he did not use for centuries it seemed…so many incarnations ago. That gave him another set of goosebumps as he set about looking for the object. Wandering the back halls of his ancient ship.

He poked his head into another room. And found lots of old stuff. This was the most 'cargo bay' like room of the entire ship. Barely filled with anything, except for old junk, pieces of his older themes for his ship. But he knew, inuitively, that what he sought was indeed in here.

And it was. He smiled to himself, and began to drag it out. It was heavier then he remembered. _How this reflects most things _the Doctor thought to himself suddenly. Freeezing. He shook the memories clear. And made his way out.

River had planted herself on a rock, and had her arms wrapped around herself protectively. Trying to hide herself from the cold weather. Doing a rather poor job at it, she had to admit.

She turned around as she heard the creek in the door, and what she saw made her laugh in amused surpirise…as the Doctor, her Doctor, was dragging out a tent from the TARDIS. He never ceased to surprise.

He then reached an impasse as he could not close the door without tripping over the tent, though unmade as it were.

He looked half helplessly between her and the TARDIS, and then rose his fingers and made a 'snap' they closed on him. "Blimey." He said blinking.

He then dragged it over to her, slowly, and with a wrenching scraping noise. She wondered what she could do to help. But finally he got it over to her.

He put it down and stared out over the mountains. With a huge grin as the wind continued to blow at her hair.

She smiled at him, and then directed him at a spot that she found.

"Oh that is brilliant!" He exclaimed. And then he gestured that they both should take it over. Which they did.

While they were dragging she struck up some conversation. "So where in the universe did you find a _tent_?"

"Oh…no where really. Some small shop on Earth in the year 2020. Must have been, oh…600 years ago. The thing said it had a twenty year waranty, and I do not actually go camping that much, figured what could it hurt."

"Oh that sounds just like you."

"Just like me indeed." He smiled again.

They arrived.

The set up was quick, it seemed that this model was designed for ease of set up. This was nothing but a good thing for the two of them. It took only about ten minutes to do this.

They then spent most of the rest of the day hiking again down into the valley. In the other direction. And even ran into a few people. Who shot The Doctor odd looks at his odd dress for a situation such as this.

They returned at about Dusk. And then the Doctor set up a fire. It burned brightly in the night. They sat around it for awhile. Roasting what was this planets equivalent of a Hot Dog.

They ate, him greedilly, her gingerly. Not really liking what she heard about the ancient Earth food, and a bit dismayed that he would make the comparison to it. This was not her most savory meal.

Then it was time for some sleep. They both went to opposite ends of the tent, and slept.

The Doctor could not quite manage it. His mind was back to racing now that he was alone. A sharp pain was in his head, and in his left heart. The weight of the universe. It was one that he felt many time. Oh Last of The Timelords, but never this bad.

He fell into a fitful sleep. Images constantly racing through his mind. At a blur. But he kept noticing the end of the universe. The Futurkind, and especially the Toclaphane. Everything was off. He was trying desperatly to fight it, to not give in to the sinking feeling. And then he saw smoke. He looked down at his hands and saw then glowing, the prequel to regenerating.

He woke up with a gasp. Sweat beating off of his forehead. He looked around startled. Then another pain happened. But this was from without. The link he shared with his vessel. It suddenly screamed at him.

He tripped on his way out the door, fallin gto his hands, he got up and scrambled out. Ripping open the flap, River woke up from her perfect sleep. Berely. She followed him out, in her sleeping wear.

The Doctor entered the TARDIS and the cloister bell was wailing in protest. He did not notice River. He knew that this was coming. He ran over to the controls. And punched in the coordinates that he wanted. And he found them.

Nothing was actually wrong with the Universe, but the TARDIS had reached the same conclusion that he did. To go forward in time and prevent the Master from turning the humans into monsters…or, just to give them their final peace. Before he…..what?

He did not know.

"Doctor? Whats wrong?"

He rubbed his hands over his face. And realized that River was there, for the first time. "Do you trust me?" He said turning to her.

"Of course I do."

He began to explain what he wanted.

"A few years ago, during my time frame. I went to the end of the universe. The short of it I discovered an enemy of mine, but he was hiding, did not even know who he was. Because of me he went back to Earth and became Prime Minister."

"Harold Saxon?"

"The same. He went back to the end, and took the last humans and mutiated them, turning them into spherical encased monsters. He would go back and time, and use those to conquer Earth. A paradox. I want to save them, to put those lost souls some peace at the end."

"So we are heading to the end of the universe?"

"Correctomundo….." he looked sick for a second. "I hate that word." He looked at her. "Ready?"

"Yes."

He kicked the controls, and the TARDIS purred to life.


	2. Return to Mascarro

The TARDIS dematiralized once more

The TARDIS dematiralized once more. At the end of the universe, so far ahead of wherever he had gone, except for that once. He opened the door, and River stepped out with him.

The whole area was barren, and scraggy, and jagged. But most importantly. Dead. No movement that either of them could see.

It took River a few seconds to realize what was the most surprising, that she could see at all. She looked up, and it was black. Nothing but black. Not a star in the sky.

The Doctor followed her gaze. "Yep. Everything is dead or dying. Not another star in maybe…the whole universe" He scratched at his head absentmindedly. "Nope, nothing. Just this place left here, all alone in the night."

River looked down again, over the grounds. And then glanced at the Doctor. "We can see."

"Oh yes. Quite simple really." His hand moved to tugging at his chin. "Its an atmospheric shell, quite literally. Keeps everything in."

"Even light?"

"Of course light. Its just on the surface though, gives it a sheen. Of course it is possible that light is coming from artificial, or natural…but I doubt it. Coming?"

She smiled at him weakly. "Sure…why not."

He started off in a few seconds after that, his usual wide confident stride that he used. Moving away from his craft at an admirable velocity. She was about to start off to follow him, when she heard a swish behind her, and that she saw something move. She hesitated, but in the end shook it off, as she jogged to catch up with the Doctor.

They walked for what seemed like an endless time. Time lost meaing here, with nothing to gauge at all. Everything just became one fluid moment.

She glanced at the Doctor, but he was not paying attention. He was looking out over the land, not exchanging a single grunt with her. His eyes narrowed, and darting back and forth. Watching, and looking.

He stopped suddenly, and turned around, literally glaring behind him. Suddenly alert. River was about to ask. Then:

"HUMAN!" The wail was utterly terrible, even more so the fact that it was obviously language. She looked at the Doctor who looked back at her.

"Run!" He said quite hurriedly, moving in the other direction. Moving as fast as he could. She followed, even though she was not in nearly as good as shape that he was.

The Future Kind gave chase behind the two of them, running and running to try and out pace their nemesis's. The Doctor was able to do this quite easily, but River was falling more and more behind

The Doctor looked behind him at the increasing numbers of the Futurekind, as they were starting to catch up with even him.

Then another howl, this time from in front of the pair. The Doctor came skidding to a halt. Just in front of them. They started at each other for a few seconds, River panting behind him, when the Futurekind charged. The Doctor ran in the complete other direction, perpendicular to his last path. He could feel his own lungs straining at the new weight.

She stumbled slightly over a jagged rock, and then once more started to run, her chest was now heaving as the Futurekind continued to catch up with her. Howling, grunting and hissing all the while. She then lost her balance and fell face down. And flat in the dust.

The Doctor turned around in a panic, as he saw that the combined oponents were about to catch up to her. She looked up at him, also desperate. Out of all the ways to go, all the ways to end his journey. He did not expect to die quite like this. He always expected, what he did not know. Especially here and now. He was here trying to correct a mistake, but instead he was going to be mauled and eaten alive by a bunch of half-human cannibals.

He then heard a rapid fire cracking from in front of him, he spun around on his feet and looked at what was making that noise that sounded like Rifle fire.

River also looked up to see what it was. A woman was standing over a slight outcropping, with what looked like a rifle in her hand. It was quite primitive, but also advanced, at least by her standards. But she would assume that after her century humanity would have found better things then those obviously were to shoot other sentient with.

She fired another burst, which landed just in front of the oncoming enemies. Which the Doctor was thankful for, she was not killing them, yet.

The Futurekind paused and stared her down, looking at her, she returned their glare, her weapon still raised and ready to fire, the Doctor looked between the two of them. Finally, the Futurekind stalked off slowly, she did not lower her weapon until they were good and far away.

She then shifted her glare to the Doctor and River. River almost pressed her body to his, looking at the new potential threat with fear. Her eyes were a slight bit misty. As she was recovering, only to be thrust back into the middle of this new situation. But the Doctor was not worried. There was something else to those eyes, other then that glaring suspicion, a slight smile, mirrored with mere curiosity.

"So, I thought I was the only human left on Mascarro?"

The Doctor took one step forward, cautiously. "Well, we aren't exactly from around here."

Her face cracked into a slight grin, although a weak one. "That much is obvious."

"I'm the Doctor, and this is River Song." He gestured as River nodded. The Doctor did not move forward, he was not prepared for trust yet.

"Well, welcome, I am Kelley." She said, her accent had a hint of London still lurking in it.

"Well nice to meet you." He said finally grinning and moving over to her, extending his hand. He could feel River's tension just leak off as the three of them came together.

The moment was ruined as the three of them turned around at the howling of what sounded like a lot of Futurekind.

"Well, that didn't take long. And I do not have a lot of ammunition with me. This way!" he said gesturing, and beginning to retreat. The Doctor and River followed her.

After three hours of crawling, stumbling, and tripping over rocks, and pieces of metal. The three of them arrived at what looked like a mountain. Their guide seemed to be heading for it. After looking all around them to make sure they were not being followed by anything.

They then climbed up slowly through the winding passages, and entered a cave.

"Welcome, to my humble abode." She said with a lopsided smile. Gesturing to a burnt out fire pit in the center.

After she got started making her fire she started to put something onto it to cook, then started a second fire at an adjourning pit, and spread some black powder across from it and it sizzled. The Doctor crinkled his nose in slight disgust, he could catch a slight whiff of something deep in that powder, he even went so far as to shoot it a dirty look.

After she passed out the food, which tasted like a burnt noodle, they sat in silence for a little while. Then the Doctor noticed something.

"Excuse me, but from what I can tell, and I am usually pretty good at these things…the futurekind seem to have pretty good orfac-noses…how do you stay hidden from them? And where do you get your supplies?"

"Well. You see that," she nods toward the other fire, "that powder is something that naturally seems to draw them away. I think it smells bad to them or something, they come nowhere near it for hours when you use the stuff, it spreads out pretty far from what I can tell, and that single powder seems to last forever." She smiled at them brightly.

"And the supplies?" The Doctor repeated.

"Well those I get from that former base. The one that housed the rocket."

"That's right. I know of it, I have been there. Go on?"

"Well, there is a secret entrance to the facility about half a kilometer from here. Does not take me that long, just a difficult run to get to due to the terrain and the Futurekind. I get all my supplies there, except food, those are small animals that are left that I hunt. The fuel though, and the ammunition for my 7-6-2 old style, I get it all from there when I can and need to." She then looked at her gun fondly, "boy is this thing a real antique, over three hundred years old. Built at the end of the last techno crisis wars to deal with the loss of technology, the gun that won it too." She lapsed into a slight silence, but memories were deep in her eyes, she snapped out of it soon enough. "So where are you from?"

"Gallifrey."

"Never heard of it."

"I did not think you would have." The Doctor said evenly.

The silence deepened again, The Doctor decided he was growing fond of this new native to this last planet at the end of Time and Space of this universe, he hated being at the end of everything.

River then spoke. "So, why did you remain behind?"

"What?"

"Well, from what the Doctor told me, all the humans on this planet, minus the futurekind left for possibly the last refuge of humanity, called Utopia."

"Oh, that." She mocked grin slightly. "Well…Utopia has been a myth, a quest for the Holy Grail, always has been, and always will be. I knew it was just going to lead to trouble. And I do not know. Besides, I was getting sick of the Human race, just holding on to nothing. I admire the stories of old, of Empires, and Civilizations spanning Galaxies. So I stay, here in isolation. Trying to live, but hoping the Futurekind gets me in the end."

"Tell me, has anyone returned since the ship launched. At all."

"No, Why? Just me and the futurekind."

"Nothing…that is why we are here, I was trying to find someone."

"Oh." Another pause, then she looked out over the mountains, and the ground of the former planet. "It is getting late, we should probably get at least some rest."

River gave the Doctor a most quizzical look. "How can she tell?"

The Doctor shrugged impassivly before he too stared out over the grounds.

The next day, or night, or whatever. River was shaken awake by their new companion, their guide to this new world. She then went to awaken the Doctor. River scratched the sleep out of her eyes. She looked blearily through the mouth of the cave, and was shocked to still see complete darkness. The Doctor stirred and got up, greeting her cheerily.

They both ate, speedily giving the circumstances. She looked thoughtful, the Doctor, more pensive and somber.

They then wanted to head out into the grounds, and get back to the TARDIS. Their colleague shook her head bitterly, saying that the Futurekind hunted at this time especially. And she had no way to fend them off with just the tech that she had.

The Doctor, as always undefeated, came up with a solution.

He made up two baskets, and filled them with the anti Futurekind substance, and then he made a harness out of something out of his jacket, and tied it around her. He then lit it, flaming bright, with his sonic screwdriver.

They then made their way slowly to the TARDIS, entering it, over her objections at what it was.

The Doctor ran over to the console throwing his jacket in the chair.

"So Doctor, now what? I mean, this was all a complete waste."

"No, not really." He said excitedly looking at the status screen, his tongue protruding from his mouth as he tried to analyze the jumble of readouts.

"So then…what?"

He looked up, and his mouth opened wide in slight surprise, then snapped shut again. "Oh sorry, that's right. Well, basically when they traveled they traveled to a set of coordinates, I am just trying to figure out where they are. Exactly."

River went to go stand next to her Doctor.

He waved his hand around randomly. "There is where they were heading."

"But there is nothing in that region."

"Well, nothing we can detect any way, from this distance. That is actually quite a ways from here. Whole Galaxies in fact, when they still had such things."

"Oh."

"Shall we?" He said smiling brightly.

She nodded with her own grin. The Doctor slammed down on the lever, and once more the TARDIS went careening through time and space. Once more on their way to a new destination.


End file.
